


The Meaning of Home

by morganoconner



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-12
Updated: 2010-06-12
Packaged: 2017-10-18 06:18:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/185904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganoconner/pseuds/morganoconner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabriel has been away from Heaven, from <i>home</i>, for too long…</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Meaning of Home

He tries not to think about it. Tries not to remember the music, the warmth, the love of his family, the love of his _Father_. He tries not to recall the way he and his brothers used to laugh, tries to bury the memories of the closeness they once shared.

He loses himself, for thousands of years, going so deep into his self-made vessel, into his self-created identity, that there is only Loki. _Gabriel_ , the Messenger, the angel of judgment, all but ceases to exist, and for a while, he is something like happy. Content.

Peaceful.

By the time he meets his brothers’ vessels, by the time he recognizes them for what they are, he has been lost for so long in the persona of the Trickster that he has forgotten everything he once was. He has forgotten the fighting, and the wars, and the bright, stabbing pain that carved its way through him each time a brother or sister died. He has forgotten the song of the Host, forgotten what it is to truly fly. He has forgotten how to call upon his grace for anything but what Loki has used it for.

Trickery. Indulgence. Judgment, or a twisted and corrupted form of it.

When it all comes crashing back, when they force him to remember just by their very existence, he is almost crushed beneath the weight of it, almost destroyed by the knowledge of all that he’s seen and done and forgotten and remembered. All that he’s _been_.

And then there’s only agony. The need for home and family hits hard, cuts deep, and he’s blind with grief over the knowledge that he’ll never get it back. Never be _allowed_ , not after all of this. And even through the pain, he can’t regret it, can’t regret running away, because nothing, _nothing_ , has changed.

His brothers and sisters are still killing each other.

His family is still at war.

The apocalypse is coming, the end is closer than ever, and all he wants, all he desperately _needs_ , is for it to be over. He’ll take his punishment in whatever way it comes, as long as it’s just _over_. Death, at this point, could bring nothing but relief.

And truly, when death does come for him, when he makes his stand and embraces who he once was and _fights_ … When death comes in the form of one of the brothers he loved so deeply, he welcomes it with open arms and an open heart that has been tattered and torn and broken over and over and _over_.

There is darkness, and he loses himself in it as he comes apart and is tossed into the ether, nothing more than stardust and a memory of something that was once great.

He is claimed by oblivion.

~*~

Returning, _reforming_ , taking that first harsh breath of air, feels like the punishment he’s deserved all along. Being forced to exist, forced to _live_ , makes him long to cry out to his Father, to beg for peace, but his voice catches on the sobs that bubble up from his chest as he realizes he can’t feel his grace.

He’s toppling forward before he even realizes he was sitting up, and he’s caught before it even registers that he’s not alone, and then arms are wrapped around him, and a low voice is murmuring in his ear, and he _knows_ whose shoulder it is he’s pressing his face into, but it makes no sense, and he doesn’t understand, and…

“Shh.” Castiel nuzzles at Gabriel’s hair as he shushes him. “You are safe, brother.”

He feels grace, not his own, buzzing along his skin, curling around him like smoke and lightning and _home_ , and he wants to drown in it, wants to cling to it and never, _never_ , let go. “How…” he asks, voice raw and painful.

“It does not matter. You are here, and you are not alone.”

 _Not alone_. He’s been alone for so long, _so long_ , and the idea of _not_ being alone is so foreign that he doesn’t know what to do with it. He was _gone_ , he was _done_ , and now he’s _back_ , and he doesn’t know what to do with that either.

But he’s not alone… and somehow, that makes it more bearable. Somehow, that makes being here _okay_.

“My grace…” he says, coughing.

Castiel pulls back, tilts Gabriel’s chin up with a warm finger. The intensity of those eyes burns into him, _fills_ him. “I had to bring you back before I could give you back you grace.”

And that… Gabriel doesn’t know what to say to that. What to _think_ of that, of Castiel, Heaven’s littlest angel, bringing him back, _saving his grace_. So he doesn’t say anything, just continues to stare into those eyes, those eyes that see so much deeper than any angel’s ever have before, those eyes that seem to see _him_ , not only as far as his grace, but right down to the very fabric of what makes him who he is.

Castiel’s lips twitch, and he leans forward, captures Gabriel’s lips with his own before Gabriel can think to protest. And the world _erupts_. Light – _radiance_ – pours into him. Castiel breathes grace into the archangel, and it fills Gabriel to overflowing, binds to him, soaks into the crevices and cracks of his very being. He is overcome with the feeling of _rightness_ , of _home_ and _perfection_ , the feeling of _family_ that he’s been missing for millennia.

He’s not aware of the sound he makes, not aware of the way he clutches at Castiel, presses against him as though Castiel is _life_. He’s not aware of the way Castiel’s hands run through his hair, or the way he’s trying so desperately to get closer, _closer_ … and not for the sake of his grace, still flowing from one angel into another. Not for the sake of the warmth that seeps into his frozen body.

Castiel feels like home. And _that_ … that’s all Gabriel cares to know right now.

-  


**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Meaning of Home [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/313422) by [tinypinkmouse_podfic (tinypinkmouse)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinypinkmouse/pseuds/tinypinkmouse_podfic)




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